Friday, September 23, 2005

Local Politics: Fallout

I have things to say, but no time to say them. My weekend has gone from "a good time to catch up on things" to another weekend of rushes, frustrated desires, and previous commitments. I have yet to even pass fully into Friday night and I’m already feeling the stress. But I want to do a summary of the Primary Results and throw a closed parenthesis on this part of the election process.

First off, Reagan Dunn took out Steve Hammond handily in the 9th, leaving the rural areas with no strong representation on the King County Council. Way to go! We’ve made King County government more efficient by disenfranchising a good chunk of King County! While I’m no fan of Hammond’s politics, he conceded like a gentleman and offered both his support and his advice to winner Dunn. Dunn now is favored against Shirley Gaunt-Smith, the Dem, but I don’t think it was the “dunn-deal” it would have been with Hammond.

Way over in the 1st Democratic primary, we have another nail-biter, where the margin of victory is very tight. Ferguson, who performed a strong ground game (I was moving a friend near Green Lake on Saturday and we were hit up by canvassers) took a lead, but Edmonds got strong in the mail-in votes, and while Ferguson widened the lead, it’s pretty evenly spread. No shenanigans have been alleged (in fact the Secretary of State pointed out it was a quiet election untainted by scandal, much to the frustration of his fellow Republicans).

The other close race is for who gets to run against Sue Rahr for Sheriff. Rahr took the lead spot easily, but Fuda and Schmidt are both real tight in the race for second place. I’m surprised, since I thought Fuda would do better. The Lovely Bride went for Rahr based on her political endorsements, I went for Fuda on the recommendation of his fellow officers.

Over for the King County Executive, it’s going to be Dem Ron Simms against GOP Dave Irons, as expected. The State GOP was kind of hoping for some election-related scandal to beat up Simms with in the general, but in the absence of that, they’re trying to spin that Simms victory as soft (he only got 69% of the vote in a light field). Of course, Greg Nichols race for Mayor got 56% in a race against relative unknowns, and Sue Rahr got 64%, yet no one is trying to push the idea of either one being vulnerable (indeed, the “no one can stop Nichols” vibe remains strong).

Speaking of Irons, this morning’s Seattle Times has a story that shows he’s embracing the same tactics that endeared Dino Rossi to me - approaching the issues by surrounding them on all sides. He’s apparently told one group that he is dead-set against Southwest moving from SeaTac to Boeing Field, while telling supporters of the move that he’s open to negotiations on it. And that tactic will work out fine, as long as each group doesn’t find out about the other (uh-oh).

Port Authority looks like its going to be Creighton versus Molloy, Berkowitz versus Hara, and Jolley versus Davis. The interesting one is Creighton, who I thought of as just another candidate, only to discover after the fact that he has thrown a lot of money into the campaign, won by a huge margin, and is part of the Dino Rossi/GOP/Pro-Development team. Pity you can’t tell that from just a name on the ballot. Remember that the position is non-partisan. The candidates? Not so much.

That’s the short update for the primary. Now we grind to November. I’ve already gotten a mailing for Julia Patterson (Democrat incumbent for the 5th District). Getting out there early and often apparently paid off for Dunn, and should work for Patterson as well.